New Delhi: In a first initiative of its kind, India has begun scouting for deep underground sites to store for several decades the nuclear waste generated from its burgeoning atomic power programme. As a first step, the Department of Atomic Energy will set up an underground laboratory in one of its uranium mines to study qualities of the rock at the mine bottom to decide whether it can be used to store nuclear waste. "We are looking for a rock formation that is geologically stable, totally impervious and without any fissures," Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Srikumar Banerjee told reporters here. He said the DAE plans to set up the underground facility during the 12th Plan Period for studying the Deep Geological Repository to store the high level nuclear waste. The site should not have experienced any event in recorded history and should have a cooling mechanism using air draft as the nuclear waste would generate decay heat, which has to be removed.
However, as Indian atomic programme is committed to follow the closed fuel cycle the final nuclear waste may not have long half-life as is the case with some other countries.
PTI